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Background

Dr. Rubloff has published more than 160 papers, holds 19 patents and 6 IBM Invention Achievement Awards. He won the AVS Gaede-Langmuir Prize in 2000 "for inventive application of surface science and vacuum technology to the semiconductor industry, and for fostering an effective bridge between AVS research and manufacturing". This award was established 1977 to recognize and encourage outstanding discoveries and inventions in the sciences and technologies of interest to the AVS. He is a Fellow of APS and AVS. His research has included solid state physics, surface physics and chemistry, interfaces, semiconductor materials and processing science and technology, process diagnostics and modeling, manufacturing science, combinatorial materials science, biomaterials and bioMEMS. His semiconductor process research has emphasized the elucidation of chemical and physical mechanisms involved in surface cleaning, thermal oxidation, chemical vapor deposition, and plasma etching, and in pursing these directions he pioneered the exploitation of ultrahigh vacuum process environments and their integration with in-situ surface and interface diagnostics.

Dr. Rubloff received his B.A. in Physics magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1966, his M.S. in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1971 in Physics from the University of Chicago. He held a postdoctoral position in Physics at Brown University from 1971 to 1973. In 1973 he joined IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY, as a Research Staff Member in the Physical Sciences Department, were he worked on surface and interface science. In 1984-85 he served as Technical Assistant to the IBM Research Vice-President for Logic and Memory, and from 1985 to 1991 he continued his research while serving in several capacities as Manager of exploratory materials and processing in the Silicon Technology Department. From 1992-1993 he was Manager of Thin Film Process Modeling in the Manufacturing Research Department. From 1992 to 1997 he was also Professor Adjunct in Electrical Engineering at Yale University.

He joined academia in 1993 as Associate Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Electronic Materials Processing and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University, focusing on real-time process sensing, simulation, optimization, and control.

In 1996 he joined the University of Maryland as Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research. He served as Director of the Institute from 1996 to 2001. In 2004 he was named Minta Martin Professor of Engineering and assumed the position of founding Director of the Maryland NanoCenter. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP), and is part of the graduate program in bioengineering.

Dr. Rubloff was the founding Chairman of the AVS Manufacturing Science and Technology Group from 1992-1997 and continues to serve on its Executive Committee. He has been a member of the Metrology Technical Working Group for the SIA's National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors since its inception in 1994. He has been active in professional society work, including the Board of Directors of the AVS, Executive Committees of the AVS Electronic Materials and Processing Division, the APS Materials Physics Division, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. He has long been active in civic affairs, included 11 years service as an elected Member, Vice-President, and President of a local Board of Education in New York State.

Honors and Awards

University of Maryland awards
Invention of the Year (Physical Science): A Revolutionary, High Energy Density Nanopore Battery, 2015
Invention of the Year (Physical Science): Nano Arrays for Energy Storage, 2010